These Banana Pudding Stuffed Pumpkin Cookies are soft, chewy, and perfectly Fall flavored with warm spices. They’re impressive to look at but actually easy to make!
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The only thing better than a cookie is a cookie with something stuffed inside it. Although I shouldn’t discriminate – all foods are better with another food stuffed inside it like these cookie dough stuffed cupcakes! But, if you’re looking for a classic Fall flavored treat with a smooth and creamy snack rolled into one amazingly delicious dessert, let me present to you these Healthy Banana Pudding Stuffed Pumpkin Cookies!
Forget what the calendar says. It’s not really Fall until you’ve had your first taste of something pumpkin spice. If you haven’t been outside the house in the past few weeks and have missed the return of PUMPKIN SPICE EVERYTHAAANNGG these little doozies would make the perfect re-introduction to those warm and cozy flavor.
You’re going to want to start off making the rich, smooth, thick, and creamy banana pudding. Most pudding recipes are high in sugar and have eggs in them, but this pudding is low in sugar and vegan. The banana acts as part of the sweetener and gives the pudding that rich and creamy texture. Bananas for the win!
Put all the pudding ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat. If you’ve got any distractions in the house like a really great Friends marathon on tv or your own super chatty friend on the phone, that’s totally cool to keep paying attention to them for now. (Though let’s be real….who chats on the phone anymore!?! ;D) Once the pudding mixture starts to bubble continuously be ready to push those distractions to the side and focus all your attention on your pudding. If you walk away or don’t stir continuously at this point, your pudding could burn on the bottom and if there’s nothing better than cookies with stuff inside them, there’s nothing worse than cookies with stuff inside them that’s burnt.
Transfer the pudding into a heat safe bowl and cover that with some clingform. You want the clingform to be touching the pudding so you don’t get a layer of skin on top. And if you’re one of those people who hates the word “moist” when it comes to food, you’re definitely not going to like “skin” when it comes to your pudding. Ewwww.
Pop that pudding into the fridge while you work on the cookie dough. And if you’re anything like me it’s going to be hard NOT to eat all the cookie dough before you bake off these cookies. But work that will power and save some dough to stuff with creamy banana pudding because they’re even BETTER that way if you can imagine it.
The cookie dough is pretty straight forward to make – just mix the dry ingredients in one bowl, the wet in another, and then mix them all together until you can’t see any more of the dry ingredients. Put the cookie dough in the fridge for about 10 minutes so it can thicken up. It also becomes less sticky and easier to handle.
You’ll want to scoop out 1/4 cup of cookie dough per cookie. This makes 7 large, bakery-style cookies, but you could make them smaller if you’d like.
Split the 1/4 cup of dough in half – 1 half for the top and 1 half for the bottom. Flatten each of those pieces until it’s about 1/2″ thick. Put one of those pieces on the cookie sheet tray, plop some of the banana pudding on top, then place the other half of the cookie dough on top of that. Be sure to seal the seams together so the pudding doesn’t seep out while they’re baking.
You’ll want to bake the cookies until the edges are firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted into the cookie portion (instead of the pudding portion) comes out clean. Be careful not to underbake them because they’re a little fragile if you do and might fall apart a bit. They’re still delicious, just a slightly crumbly mess of deliciousness.
These banana pudding stuffed pumpkin cookies are perfect for any Fall gathering like a Friendsgiving, a family gathering, or a Wednesday night…because let’s be real these cookies are impressive and fun to show off, but they’re good aannyyyy day. No gathering required 😉
Substitutions:
- The cornstarch can be replaced with tapioca flour or arrowroot.
- You can swap out the cashew butter for any other seed/nut butter. I like the cashew butter here because it doesn’t overpower the banana flavor. It also keeps the pudding a light, white-ish color which gives it a nice contrast to the orange pumpkin cookies.
- The millet flour can be replaced with buckwheat flour, but the cookies will be more of a brown color than orange. It does give the cookies a nice, slightly nutty flavor, too.
Kaylie | Healthy Hacks
Yields 7 large cookies
Vegan; Gluten Free; Low Sugar
60 minPrep Time
16 minCook Time
1 hr, 16 Total Time
Save RecipeIngredients
- 1 cup milk of choice
- ½ cup banana, mashed (~1 medium sized banana)
- ¼ cup white sugar (or equivalent granulated sweetener of choice)
- 1 Tbsp + 1 tsp cornstarch
- 1 Tbsp cashew butter
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ¾ cup millet flour
- ¼ cup almond flour
- 2 Tbsp flaxmeal
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 1 ½ tsp cinnamon
- ¼ tsp ginger
- ¼ tsp allspice
- ¼ tsp nutmeg
- ¼ tsp salt
- ½ cup pumpkin puree
- ¼ cup oil
- ¼ cup water
- ¼ cup white sugar (or equivalent granulated sweetener of choice)
- 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- For the pudding: add the milk, banana, sugar, cornstarch, cashew butter, and salt to a saucepan over medium heat.
- Stir occasionally until a few bubbles start to form.
- Once bubbles form, stir continuously. Be careful not to bring it to a boil! If it’s bubbling too much, lower the heat slightly.
- Continue stirring until mixture thickens up enough that when you drag a spoon through the mixture it slowly comes back together instead of immediatly filling in the gap you drew with the spoon.
- Rremove from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract.
- Allow to cool slightly (about 5 minutes) then transfer to a heat safe bowl. Place some cling form on top of the pudding (so the cling form is touching the surface of the pudding - this will keep a skin from forming on top). Pop the pudding in the fridge while you make the cookie dough.
- For the cookies: in a large bowl, mix together the millet flour, almond flour, flaxmeal, baking powder and soda, and salt.
- In a seperate bowl, stir together the pumpkin puree, oil, water, sugar, apple cider vinegar, and vanilla extract until everything is mixed together and the sugar has dissolved.
- Add the wet ingredients tot he dry ingredients and stir together until you can't see any of the dry ingredients any more.
- Put the dough in the fridge for about 10 min. to thicken up.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F and line 2 cookie sheet trays with parchment paper (if you don't have 2 cookie sheet trays, you can do this in batches, too).
- Scoop out 1/4 cup of cookie dough and split it in half. Flatten out one half of the dough to about 1/2" thick and place it on the prepared cookie sheet. Scoop out 1 Tbsp of pudding and place it in the middle of the dough. Then flatten out the second half of the cookie dough and place it on top of the half with the pudding mixture. Press the edges together to seal in the pudding.
- Continue with this process, placing the cookie 2" apart, until you've used up all the cookie dough (you should get 7 large cookies. You'll have some pudding left over to use as you'd like or eat it by its delicious self). Use the back of a spoon to smooth the top of the cookie. If the dough is sticky, you can dip your spoon in some water to help smooth the dough out.
- Bake the cookies for 15-18 min. or until the edges are firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted into them (not through the pudding) comes out clean. The top will still be slightly springy where the pudding is.
- Allow the cookies to cool on the pan for about 10 min. then transfer them to a wire rack using a spatula.
- Allow them to cool completely then enjoy your perfect Fall flavored treats!
You might also like:
Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Stuffed Cupcakes
Healthy Pumpkin Maple Crumb Cake Muffins
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